Before Class, Chapter 13

Between 1900-1920, a lot of social, political, cultural and economic change was occuring. Cubism is one of the most common modern art movements that came up with Pablo Picasso being a renowned cubist. He used ancient Iberian and African tribal art for inspiration to the human forms he drew. In cubism, figures are drawn through geometrics and the classical human bodies are broken up. Sometimes the subjects are seen in more than one view while in the same picture. By 1913, Cubism evolved into "synthetic cubism" which meant the figures weren't really meant to be figures just signs. Juan Gris was a famous artist of this technique. His influence helped the development of geometric art. It's said his art was the half-way point between art based on perception and art realized by the relationship of geometric planes. Cubism changed the course of painting and graphic design. It became a catalyst for experiments that pushed art toward geometric abstraction.

Futurism was started by Flippo Marinetti when his "Manifesto of Futrism" was released on February 20, 1909 in Le Figaro.His piece shocked the public with its enthusiastic talk of war, the machine age, speed, and modern life and started a revolutionary movement. In 1913, Giovanni Papini published Lacerba and Marinetti's typographic revolution piece in Italy and brought typography into the movement. Free, dynamic, and piercing words were given the velocity of stars, clouds, airplaines, etc. Noise and Speed was expressed in the futurist poetry. The idea behind all this was that writing and/or typography could become a concrete and expressive visual form that had been a sporadic preoccupation of poets. Some popular names in this style are Lewis Carroll, Stephane Mallarme, and Guillaume Apollinaire. Futurist painters were influenced by the Cubist painters, but they tried to express more emotion and energy in their work. A famous architecture in this style was Antonio Sant'Elia who constructed based on technology and science and designed based on the unique demands of modern life. Futurism was a major influence in other art movements for its violent, revolutionary techniques.

Dada was considered the most ani-art movement. It was a reaction to the bloodshed of WWI and had a strong negative and destructive element. It's said the artists and writers were concerned with shock, protest and nonsense. The movement was sponteanous and started by Tristan Tzara who edited the periodical "DADA" in 1917. Dada is supposedly given its name from randomly opening a German-French dictionary and picking the word dada which means a child's hobbyhorse. Marcel Duchamp join in the movement and became the most prominent visual artist. Cubism and Futurism were his inspirations which expressed freedom and extreme emotion. Dada was supposed to be a mockery of art, but a few pieces became profound graphic design pieces. In Germany, Kurt Schwitters created a branch of Dada called "Merz" from the term "kommerz (commerce)". Merz was mostly collages in the beginning but Schwitters included poetry, along with constructivist elements. Spontaneous chance allowed Dadists to strip typography design from the usual elements and continued the cubists concept of letterforms.

Surrealism is like a drug trip. Things that appear real have a fictional feel about them. Artsits said it was "more real than the real world behind the real" which feels like surreal statement in of itself. The world of intuition, dreams and the unconcious real was explored by Freud and shown in the art. Surrealism wasn't a cry against war, nor an anti-art. It was a way of thinking, knowing, feeling, and doing life. It could free people from the social and moral conventions. Surrealism gave an example of liberation of the human spirit, pioneered new techniques and showed fantasy and intuition expressed in visual terms.

Expressionism was a depiction of subjective emotions and personal responses, organized in Germany after WWI. Shapes and colors were exaggerated or distroted and symbolic content was important. Lines and colors were intensified. Germans expressionists created 2 groups, Die Brucke (the bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (the blue rider). Die Brucke wad figurative paitnings and woodblock prints that were a statement of alienation, anxiety and despair. Ber Blaue was about having an object that had perceptual properties that could convey feelings but didn't have a subject matter in them. Both groups consciously looked for new ways to expres in art. Eventually the movement moved into theatre, film, and literature. Expressionism influenced graphic illustration, poster art and had an emphasis on social and political activism. Popular themes were children, unschooled artists, non-european cultures and tribal arts.

Photography was also influenced from the new movements. Francis Bruguiere explored multiple exposures, opening the way for potential light recorded on film to use for poetic expression. His photos played with light and shadow. Alvin Coburn did a lot of kaleidoscope paters which he called vortographs. Man Ray was another photographer who started with Dadaism and surrealism, but moved into photography and used the darkroom manipulation. he was hte first to explore the potential for solarization.